Ethiopian Petroleum Supply Enterprise to float fuel supply tender

The Ethiopian Petroleum Supply Enterprise (EPSE) will soon float an open international tender inviting oil trading companies for the supply of fuel to be delivered in 2019. EPSE estimates that the country would need 2,780,000 metric tons of gasoil, 840,000 metric tons of jet-fuel, 494,000 metric tons of gasoline and 83,000 metric tons of fuel oil. The country’s total annual fuel demand in 2019 is estimated at 4,197,000 metric tons valued at 2.8 up to three billion dollars.

Based on the agreements the Ethiopian government signed with the governments of Kuwait and Sudan a few years ago a significant amount of fuel is purchased from the state owned national oil companies of the two countries without a tender. Tadesse Hailemariam CEO of EPSE told The Reporter that 50 percent of the gasoil and 100 percent of the jet fuel would be supplied by the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC). Fifty percent of the gasoil would be purchased from oil trading companies through the open international tender which EPSE would put up in end of September.

Tadesse said Sudan Petroleum Corporation (SPC) would supply 40-50 percent of the gasoline while the balance would be purchased from oil trading firms. Accordingly EPSE would float a tender in end of September for the supply of approximately 1.35 million metric tons of gasoil, and 200,000 metric tons of gasoline. Fuel oil would be purchased in a separate bid in March 2019. A Saudi Arabian private company called Bekri International has been supplying light and heavy fuel oil to Ethiopia for the past many years.

A barrel of crude oil is sold at USD 70 at the moment. Due to the political tension in the Middle East and the proposed sanctions on Iran by the US government the price of oil in the international market is feared to soar further.

TRAFIGURA PTE LTD won the 2018 fuel supply contract. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, TRAFIGURA has offices in Singapore, Dubai and Johannesburg. TRAFIGURA won the fuel tender floated by EPSE in September 2017. Back then fourteen companies bought the tender document but only five companies submitted their proposals to the bid committee. Petro China, Vitol Oil, TRAFIGURA, ENOC, and Afro Arab returned the bid documents.

TRAFIGURA has been supplying 245000 MT of gasoline and 1,270,000 MT of diesel since January 2018. The fuel supply contract with TRAFIGURA would end in December 2018.